


The Body is Rude

by ElleBrittany



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Asexual Sherlock, Asexuality, Character Study, Dualism, Gen, schizoid - Freeform, sherlock is a total narcissist, the superiority of the mind over the body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 01:02:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElleBrittany/pseuds/ElleBrittany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And why on earth should he indulge the sick flesh? He hungers for nothing. For no one."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Body is Rude

**Author's Note:**

> Contains some grisly, visceral details which could be a tad bit squicky. If I need to put a warning just let me know.

Uptight they call him, they have always called him, chastised and berated him because his disgust with carnality is not _normal_ ; is an anomaly, is something to be ridiculed forever. Every single person he has attempted to befriend has eventually fallen in love with him, made it perfectly obvious, so bloody obvious. It is almost infuriating how pathetic and predictable they are, how desperate. And so he refuses to entertain them, does not stir those inclinations within them simply because they are foreign to him, and what good is it anyway, all this bother with the flesh, the incessant worship of the body? The body is no great triumph, it is an _appendix_ , a heinous coil doomed to fester and wither, to rot. The thought of serving the thing fills him with contempt.

And why on earth should he indulge the sick flesh? He hungers for nothing; for no one. The body is rude, he tells John, but John doesn’t understand. “How do you mean ‘rude’? No one even talks like that, Sherlock.” John is an idiot. Sherlock watches John from a distance, as he watches the whole of humanity, these vile bacchants who seek only to feel good _for the sake of feeling good_ ; no, he is not one of them, he never has been. John insists that he is probably just gay, but this is not the case either. Sherlock holds the male form to the same esteem as the female, the same esteem as all bodies; they are all monstrous coils, constellations of filth and decay, equally disgusting. He desires no one; naught but himself.  He is two-dimensional; flat and bloodless. Clean. Clean. Clean. Germless and sterile and free of bacteria, like the void, like the moon, not like water, no! Water is wanton; sickness and filth fester in water. He is not of the body; the wet, the rot, that unforgiving, ugly knot, the beastly protuberances of sinew and fat! No. These things are diseased. They are the defilers of worlds.

“Not normal, little brother,” Mycroft tuts. “Mummy would have wanted you to pass on your genes.”

But even this fills him with a strange sickliness, the inclination that such behavior is _normal_ and desirable. Did they really mean for him to lay with a woman, to defile that ugly hole, to bring a mewling blue babe into the world, another mass of rot? No. The flesh is rude and he is above it; yes, he is idle and pristine, iron and impenetrable, he is a machine, he is the essence of thought; a disembodied brain. He is not a body.

Everyone else should like to believe that he has some capacity for “letting go,” that is, because of his previous dalliance with the needle and the powder and the nicotine. Did these not indulge the body? NO! He snarls at the thought. No. Those things did not feed the body, they fed the mind, and how wondrous this had been; he’d been so close to perfection he could practically taste it.

But we are going to change that, we’re going to fix you: “For heaven’s sake, Sherlock!” cried Mycroft any number of years ago. “Can’t you pretend to be _normal_?”

The outside world is disgusting to him; the incessant worship of the flesh, the pornographic sensibility of advertising – repulsive! The sex instinct, he is convinced, is increasingly rude, is threatening, distrustful and destructive and it is _not_ him, it is _not_ who he is, he is above all that, far above the faculties of his lessers. They are not his equals, they are of no consequence to him! He is not an animal; he will never entertain the mating dance of _normal_ individuals, _normal_ hot blooded men and women admonishing their genital prowess by means of exposing the flesh, by means of strange gestures, postures, dances. He has never been transfixed by this bacchanalia; he is no great worshiper of the flesh, no, he is not to be debauched or entered or debased or otherwise dirtied by the waters of the body. No…These things are _rude_.

So many cruxes rooted in the sex instinct. All cruxes rooted in the sex instinct. So many inconsequential trifles manifesting from the desire for mutual orgasm. If humans only mated for reproduction things would make more sense, but no. The real world is ruled by the unholy phallus and the treacherous womb. He is not of this life. He is not of the flesh. He is a machine.

You are a machine. You are not allowed to appear sheepish or small; you are expected to rise above your own humanity and decry the unwashed proles who shall attempt to dissuade you. You have risen far above the dregs and detritus of your own mortality; your own carnality, you are no slave to the treacherous coil.

_You just haven’t gotten it good before._

_You just haven’t met the right person yet._

_Get over yourself._

No, he wants to say, but he does not say it. He will not get over himself. He lazily glances at John, detects the carnal inclination, the need to feel good simply for the sake of feeling good. He detects the attraction to intimacy, this need to feel close to another person, a foreign body, and the idea of the foreign body gives him no great sense of intrigue.

He has stilted memories of toy soldiers; model figurines with their static faces; masklike – the aquiline lump of plastic at the apex of the groin; the unassuming smoothness, the hardness, the lack of detail or definition. His action man is a perfect androgyne, perpetually flaccid; and the female, too, is impervious, impenetrable and sterile – they are sexless and as such their bodies simply were not made to meet, and so they would do no such thing. And so he would not divvy about with other bodies in this way.

Sherlock unfurls to his full height; vertebrae by vertebrae, the discs crack and pop as they slide into place; they are stiff, he is stiff, been sitting around too long without moving. He feels the spongy material between the plates shrink and depress, knows the joints have expressed liquid, _lubricating fluid_ , to aid the shifting of his weight. So carnal, so base, but the transport is of no dire consequence to him. Let the thing rot. Let me remain here forever, he would say. Let me seek refuge in the heat of my own mind. I tell you, the body is rude! The body is rude.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have an excuse for this. I just really wanted to write asexual!Sherlock without the context of Johnlock. Also, this particular interpretation of asexuality -- that is, an outright disgust with carnality rather than a casual indifference -- is one I've been eager to explore.
> 
> Anyway, thank you, dear reader, for giving this one a chance. As always, I appreciate feedback of any kind and will reply to every person who leaves a comment.


End file.
